The Portland daily press., 1887-08-12

berth in the six sleepers was taken, and the
day cars carried 60 persons each. The train
passed here an hour and half behind time.
The six miles from here to Chatsworth were
made in seven minutes. Three miles east of
Chatsworth there is little slough, where
the railroad crosses dry run, about 10 feet
deep and is feet broad. Over this was
stretched an ordinary wooden trestle. As
the train came along, the engineer of the
front engine saw that the bridge was on fire.
There was no chance to stop, as it would
have taken half mile to stop the train. AS
the first engine went over, the bridge fell be-
meath it. Only the terrific speed of the
train saved the lives of the engineer and his
fireman, when the next engine went down.
The coaches piled one on top of another, and
in the twinkling of an eye nearly 100 people
had found instant death. Fifty more were
so hurt that they will not live, and the
wounded were everywhere. Only the sleep
ing coaches escaped. AS the startled, half
found such a scene of death as has scarcely
ever been witnessed. 1t lacked five minutes
of midnight In the ditch lay the second
engineer, McClintock, dead, and Fireman
APPRECIATE, badly injured. On these were
coaches were telescoped as cars never were
before, three of them being pressed into just
space enough for one. The second car had
risen from its trucks, crashed through the
car ahead, and lay resting on the top Of the
OF dying underneath. Out of that
car but four persons came alive.
The third car lay by the second, the bottom
smeared with blood. The victims in the
other three cars were not so badly crushed
but were broken and twisted in every con-
ceivable way. Every crushed timber and
beam represented a crushed human form.
Instantly the air was filed with the cries of
the wounded and the shrieks of the dying.
The groans of the men and screams of the
women united to make an APPALLING sound.
Above all was heard the agonizing cries of
little children, as, in some instances, they
lay pinned almost at the side of their par
ents.
Another terrible danger beset the vic
Tins. The bridge was still burning and the
wrecked cars lying on and around the
blazing embers. Everywhere were wounded
or unhurt men, women and children whose
lives depended on their immediate extrica-
only some 80 able-bodied men who still had
the presence of mind and nerve enough to
do duty. The light was the light of the
burning bridge. For four hours the men
fought like fends.. and for four hours vic
tory hung in the balance. The earth was
the only weapon and there was no pick or
shovel to dig it up with, nor baskets nor bar
rels to carry it. Desperate men dug with
their fingers into the earth, which the long
drouth had baked almost as hard as stone,
encroac6ing flames. With the earthworE
built handful by handful they kept back the
foe. Other brave men crouched underneath
the wrecked cars, beneath the fire, with
pieces OF boards and sometimes with their
hands beat back the flames when they
flashed up. alongside of some unfortunate
wretch, who was pinned down. Finally the
victory wasswon and the fire put out.
AS the last sparks died, the dawn
came on the scene of horror. Men had bean
dying constantly and there were not so
many wounded to be taken out as four hours
before. The country had been aroused and
help came from Chatsworth, Forest and
Piper City. The dead were laid reverently
along side each other in the cornfelds.
worth and Piper City. One hundred and
eighteen was the awful poll of the dead.
The full tale cannot be told for days. Chats
worth was turned into morgue. The town
hall, engine house and depot are all full of
dead bodies. Every house in the village
has It's quota of wounded. Over leo corpses
are lying in extemporiZed dead houses.
Every man and woman turned out as nurses.
In the lumber yard busy carpenters are
making rough coffins to carry the dead. DIR.
Steel, chief surgeon of the Toledo, Peoria
and Western road, came on special train
and with him were two other surgeons and
assistants. Peoria sent four doctors. From
every city where the excursionists had come,
hurried physicians and friends. Some band
of miscreants began plundering the dead
from the first, taking even the shoes. A
horrible suspicion exists that the accident
was deliberately planned and the bridge fired
by miscreants for the purposes of robbery.
The tiends went into the cars when the
fire was burning fercely underneath, and
when the poor wretches penned there
begged them for Gods sake to help them
out, and stripped them of watches and jew
elry and searched their pockets for money.
When the dead bodies laid out in the corn
fields, the hyenas turned them over in search
for valuables, rs was proved this morning in
the corn fields where l6 purses, all empty,
were found in heap. Had the plunderers
been caught they would have been hanged
to the nearest tree